This article was originally printed in the latest issue of Numismatic News.
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A previously unknown $10 1861 Demand Note “Payable by the Assistant Treasurer of the U.S. at St. Louis” will highlight a Signature Currency auction slated for Jan. 6-8, 2011, in Tampa, Fla., by Heritage Currency Auctions.
What makes the note unique is that the clerks that signed the note for the Treasurer of the United States and the Secretary of the Treasury also wrote “for the” following each signature.
This handwritten acknowledgement was quickly dropped as too cumbersome at the time of issue and “for the” then became part of the printing plate.
Other notes are known with “for the” written in, but this is the first example from St. Louis, Heritage says.
Demand Notes were authorized in 1861 to help pay the North’s ballooning military expenditures in the early days of the Civil War. They were not backed by gold.
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